Misery, Mutilation, Destruction, Terror, Starvation And Death

It Has Not Been For Nothing That The Word Has Remained Man's Principal Toy And Tool: Without The Meanings And Values It Sustains, All Man's Other Tools Would Be Worthless.

The Physical Lot Of Surviving Workers Had Notably Improved, With Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, And The New Health Services, While Their Children's School Education Was Assured By The Government-operated Schools: In Addition, They Had, For Intellectual Or Emotional Stimulus And Diversion, The Radio And The Television. But The Work Itself Was No Longer As Various, As Interesting, Or As Sustaining To The Personality.

Chaos, If It Does Not Harden Into A Pattern Of Disorder, May Be More Fruitful Than A Regularity Too Easily Accepted And A Success Too Easily Achieved.

In The Name Of Economy A Thousand Wasteful Devices Would Be Invented; And In The Name Of Efficiency New Forms Of Mechanical Time-wasting Would Be Devised: Both Processes Gained Speed Through The Nineteenth Century And Have Come Close To The Limit Of Extravagant Futility In Our Own Time. But Labor-saving Devices Could Only Achieve Their End-that Of Freeing Mankind For Higher Functions-if The Standard Of Living Remained Stable. The Dogma Of Increasing Wants Nullified Every Real Economy And Set The Community In A Collective Squirrel-cage.

When Art Seems To Be Empty Of Meaning, As No Doubt Some Of The Abstract Painting Of Our Own Day Actually Does Seem, What The Painting Says, Indeed What The Artist Is Shrieking At The Top Of His Voice, Is That Life Has Become Empty Of All Rational Content And Coherence, And That, In Times Like These, Is Far From A Meaningless Statement.